Quintus Fabius Pictor

Quintus Fabius Pictor (c. 254 BC-?) was one of the earliest Roman historians. A member of the Fabii gens, he was the grandson of Gaius Fabius Pictor, a painter ("pictor" in Latin). He was a senator who fought against the Gauls in 225 BC, and against Carthage in the Second Punic War. He was appointed to travel to the oracle at Delphi for advice after the Roman defeat at the Battle of Cannae.

He wrote in Greek, and was more of an annalist than an historian. He used the chronicles of his own and other important Roman families as sources, and began with the arrival of Aeneas in Latium. His work ended with his own recollections of the Second Punic War, which he blamed entirely on Carthage, especially the Barca family of Hamilcar and Hannibal.

He was used as a source by Polybius, Livy, and Dionysius of Halicarnassus, and his work had been translated into Latin by the time of Cicero.